


Oro

by dragonesdepapel



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Scars, but not too much, you know you still want to read this one, you've probably read fics about adora's scars before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24546202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonesdepapel/pseuds/dragonesdepapel
Summary: She knows all too well the marks that mar Adora’s cheek. Three mostly parallel lines that go from her cheekbone to her chin. They aren’t too thick, but they are long, and while their reddish undertone is subtle, it still clashes against Adora’s pale complexion.Catra should know everything about those scars. She knows how they look; she knows how they feel under her touch. She knows she was the one who put them there.She doesn’t know when, or where she did it.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 797





	Oro

**Author's Note:**

> I have, no joke, been trying to name this thing for the last three hours. I gave up. I almost named it generic title about healing scars. Oro is Spanish for gold btw, I swear I always have like a whole mental map of what I want my titles to be about but my mind just refuses to hand out anything good. So like, I reserve the right to change it in the future if someone suggests something better lmao
> 
> Anyway! I love all takes on Adora's scars, and I really wanted to write my own.
> 
> A fun game to play while reading this is guessing which part almost made me cry while writing it, a thing I did not think was possible for me to happen. I've never cried while reading a book and it's really hard to make me cry with shows? But yeah making myself cry while writing is apparently something I can do.

Adora is already in bed by the time Catra makes it back to the room. Melog is nowhere in sight, which makes sense. Now that they’ve been feeling more comfortable at Bright Moon, Melog has taken to running in the woods at night, enjoying getting to be around nature again. 

Adora’s with her back to the headrest, a report in her hands. For a second Catra has a flash of another Adora, an older one, with glasses on her face and lines around her eyes. The image tugs at the pit of her stomach, and for a second Catra revels in the thought that she’s allowed to dream about stuff like this now. 

She follows the warm feeling to her bed, where she wastes no time in kissing the hell out of her girlfriend. 

“Hey you,” Adora says before kissing her back. 

Catra settles herself more comfortably between Adora’s legs, but something catches her attention, making her pull back from her embrace. 

“You smell weird.” 

She glares at Adora like that will give her the answer behind her unspoken question. 

Adora laughs, trying to put more distance between them. Catra stops her by putting a hand on her waist. Adora’s forgotten report has fallen to the side, its pages probably getting crumpled. 

“It’s that bad?” 

Catra gets closer again, taking in a purposeful breath. Her nose crinkles up without her meaning to. 

“No, it’s not. It’s just...weird, different.” She smells Adora’s face again, making her giggle. “It’s herbal, right? Are you sick? Is it medicine?” 

Adora shakes her head. “No, I’m ok, don't worry. It’s a face cream Perfuma gave me. I’ll stop using it if it bothers you that much.” 

There’s something off in Adora’s voice, but she can’t quite put her finger on it. 

“It really is fine,” Catra assures her. She resists the urge to smell her girlfriend's face again. “It surprised me, that’s all.” 

She looks behind her, to where their vanity is. She can make out a new ceramic shape making its home among the trove of hair ties, right next to their lonely hairbrush. When she turns back around, Adora is looking at her with an amused grin and what can Catra do but kiss it away? 

Her other arm comes to grip Adora’s waist too, pulling her even closer. Adora’s hands waste no time in burying themselves on Catra’s hair, something only them are allowed to do. The warm feeling in Catra’s stomach grows so large that it can’t be contained within her anymore, and she feels herself start purring. Adora breaks the kiss to trail a few pecks down her jaw, only to then come back up and kiss right under her ear. 

Catra pulls back again, leaving Adora to stare at her in confusion. Catra uses one hand to cup Adora’s face, then gently makes her look to the side, exposing her left cheek. Catra sniffs it, not bothering to explain what she’s doing. The perfume is clearly missing. 

“Aren’t you supposed to put the cream on your whole face?” 

She lets go of Adora’s face and rests her weight on the back of her thighs. 

“You are? Oh wow, I didn’t know that, good thing I have you to explain it to me!” Adora laughs, all high and squeaky. 

Catra decides she’s not going to dignify her obvious lie with an answer. She waits. Adora’s smile looks so tight it must be getting uncomfortable. Catra crosses her arms. The silence stretches, none of them willing to give up first. Adora’s eye twitches. 

Adora sighs, dropping the act. “Ok, ok, I did know that, I’m sorry.” 

Catra frowns. “What’s going on?” 

Despite being so close, Adora doesn’t quite meet her eyes when she says, “It’s supposed to help fade the scars.” 

Catra lets her arms fall, resisting the urge to use them to hug herself. “Oh,” she says, and now she’s the one who can’t meet Adora’s eyes. 

She looks down, avoiding her face. She knows all too well the marks that mar Adora’s cheek. Three mostly parallel lines that go from her cheekbone to her chin. They aren’t too thick, but they are long, and while their reddish undertone is subtle, it still clashes against Adora’s pale complexion. 

Catra should know everything about those scars. She knows how they look; she knows how they feel under her touch. She knows she was the one who put them there. 

She doesn’t know when, or where she did it. 

She remembers the feeling of Adora’s skin breaking under her claws. The smell of her blood smeared on the battlefield. She’d be lying if she didn’t say she knew it even before that. She has hurt her, over and over and over again. In training. When they were young. While Adora was clad in light and gold and Catra convinced herself it wasn’t Adora at all. She has taken advantage of every chance, every opportunity. 

Some nights Catra gets to do it all over again. The blood, the aggression, it’s all there, like it never left. She wakes up drenched in sweat, those nights, and wills herself to stay still. So still, she might not even be breathing. Because if she moves, then she loses. Her own body betrays her; tears flow freely from her eyes, her heart gets so wild it feels like there’s no way it’ll ever get back to normal. It’s impossible not to alert Adora when Catra gets like that. Adora wakes up, and she holds Catra, and she waits until the endless string of tears and apologies runs out. Then she makes Catra rest her head against her chest, so she can time her breaths with the beating of Adora’s heart. And even then, Adora doesn’t go back to sleep. She stays awake, carding her fingers through Catra’s hair, over and over and over again, until the tension leaves her body. Only then will Adora let herself fall back asleep. Catra stays awake, wondering how Adora can’t see that she’s not worth even a second of it. 

But no matter how many times she’s gone over it in her head, either awake or asleep, Catra can’t find the origin of the lines on Adora’s cheek. All she knows is that, at some point, the sight of her marks on Adora’s skin became so ordinary that she lost track of them. 

“I’m sorry, that’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want you to look like that.” 

Catra resists the urge to hiss. Traitor body, showcasing her emotions for everyone else to see. But this isn’t everyone, it’s Adora. She's safe with her, they can talk about this. 

“It’s ok, Adora. Of course you want to get rid of them.” 

A hand comes to rest under her chin. Adora gently tilts her head up, and the least Catra do is let herself meet her eyes. 

“I don’t want that, Catra. But I know they bring you pain. That’s why I thought...” Adora trails off, pursing her lips. “It was my mistake to keep it from you.” 

“You don’t have to lie to me, it’s ok to want them gone.” 

“I’m not lying, I really don’t mind them.” 

Catra rolls her eyes. “You ‘don’t mind’ three huge lines going down your face?” 

“I don’t!” Adora’s voice gets an octave higher, like it would if they were having an argument about who really got the last point on iceball. “Actually, if you must know...” 

“What?” 

Adora’s cheeks tint with the faintest of pinks, and Catra can’t keep her eyes off the way they make the offending scars stand out even more. “Please promise to hear me out before you say anything, ok?” 

Catra hesitates for a second, completely at a loss of what Adora is about to say. “...ok?” 

“I really don’t mind scars. I actually...kinda like them.” 

“Adora!” 

Adora throws her hands in the air. “I said you had to hear me out!” 

“You just said you like getting hurt!” Now Catra’s voice has gone all high too. At least it didn’t crack like Bow’s. 

“That’s not what I said! And I told you to let me explain first!” 

Catra takes a deep breath and tries to school her expression into something that isn’t complete disbelief. She thinks it’s a great feat, considering what her self-sacrificial girlfriend has just admitted. If anything, she thinks she’s underreacting. 

“Catra I don’t like getting hurt!” Adora insists. “I don’t think scars are that bad, that’s all!” 

“That’s not what you just said.” 

“Well yeah but you completely misinterpreted that!” 

“How do you want me to interpret it? You regularly throw yourself into danger. You have tried, multiple times, to pay the ultimate sacrifice because you are so sure that’s what it’s expected of you, and-” 

Adora groans. She drags a hand over her face and takes a deep breath. 

“Let me explain, please?” 

Catra presses her lips, but nods. 

“I don’t,” Adora says with emphasis, “like getting scars, ok? But once they are there...I don’t mind them. I used to have some of them, even before all this, remember?” 

Catra nods again. Of course she knows. Metaphorical scars are not the only ones you get when growing up in the Fright Zone. Catra had always been the more agile of the two and had managed to escape most injuries caused by either training or their own games, but Adora was more the type who learned by rolling with the punches. 

Some of them are still there, even after all these years. Catra knows she shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that, especially since everything else about Adora has changed so little over the years, but she was. There are new ones, though, some little, some big. According to Adora, most injuries sustained by She-Ra would be quick to close up, but sometimes the magic wouldn’t be enough to heal them all the way before she dropped the transformation. That’s probably not a problem now that she has unlocked her powers to their full ability, but it’s not like they are anxious to try that theory out. There’s one, a huge line that runs along Adora’s thigh, that Catra is especially curious about. It's thick and ragged and Catra would never ask for her to relive the pain that it must’ve caused just to satisfy her own curiosity. 

Adora tilts her own head up and points under her jaw, where a thin, white line rests. It’s mostly faded now, and Catra barely feels it when she caresses it with her thumb. 

Adora smiles. “Remember this one? We were playing the floor is lava and I fell, but I got up and kept playing?” 

“Yes, and then I noticed that your shirt was covered in blood and had a major freak-out, your point is...?” 

“That was the first night we slept in the same bed. You were so worried you wouldn’t go to sleep, so we ended up falling asleep together.” 

It was true. She had forgotten it up until this point, but now the image came clear to her mind. Adora’s bandaged neck, and the way she kept insisting she was fine even though it was obvious she was very uncomfortable. Catra had to take her hand to stop it from messing with the cloth. 

“Or, the one that Lonnie had? Over her shoulder? She got it from that broken gear that time we were training – wow the Horde was a terrible place for kids to be in, wasn’t it? – and it was shaped like a star, and from that time on she never got hit on that arm and she said it was her lucky charm?” 

Catra looks at her with narrowed eyes. “You realize I didn’t magically forget about everything that happened in our childhood, right?” 

Adora sticks her tongue out at her, but her tone doesn’t lose its cheerfulness. “That’s it, don’t you see? Every scar has its history, that’s what they are. Stories.” 

Adora is looking at her like she just handed Catra the key to the universe, but Catra can’t help but arch an eyebrow. The last thing she wants is to make Adora feel bad about this, but also...shouldn’t she feel bad about this? Adora doesn’t have the best history when dealing with her own pain, and disregarding the severity of her own injuries and the impact they've had on her body seems to fit perfectly into her usual M.O. 

“Ok, let’s say I follow you. Adora, they are still really shitty stories.” 

That does dim Adora’s expression, making Catra feel a pang of regret. This is a conversation they need to have though, no matter how difficult it gets. 

“I mean, if that’s how you want to look at them...” 

“How else do you want me to look at them Adora? You’ve been getting hurt since you were a baby! First by your own friends, who were training to become cannon fodder. Then you got away from that, but you still ended up fighting in the same mindless war. Those lines on your face, Adora? I put them there! I was so consumed by my own pain that I went as far as making myself believe I hated you. I got so used to hurting you to make myself feel better that I don’t even remember putting them there!” 

A silence follows her little outburst and Catra uses it to reflect on the fact that she actually thought she could be a calm an impartial party in what should be a journey of self-discovery for Adora. Oh well, it is what it is. She might have been getting better at talking about feelings, now that she’s on this side of the Whispering Woods, but she won’t pretend to be anywhere near as comfortable with it as Bow and Sparkles seem to be. She’s the one that Adora’s brought this up to though, so she’ll do her best. 

“Is that what bothers you so much? That you don’t remember making them?” Adora finally says. For all that she can be beyond daft when it comes to emotions, she has the annoying habit of always perceiving a bit too much when it comes to Catra. 

“You are asking me if the reason I’m upset about the fact that I literally tried to claw your face out is that I don’t remember it?” 

Adora blinks once. “Yes.” 

“Are you kidding me, Adora?” Catra exclaims because, seriously. She resists the urge to get up and walk away because this is her girlfriend she’s talking to, and Catra has kind of spent most of her life trying to get herself to this place. 

“Ok, let me rephrase that. Is the fact that you don’t remember this particular instance of you literally trying to claw my face out the reason you are even more upset about this reminder of that time you literally tried to claw my face out?” 

Most of her life. Catra devoted most of her life to dreaming about being in a relationship with this idiot. 

“Maybe.” 

Adora sighs, and for the first time her face gets clouded by some unknown emotion. “Want to hear a shitty story?” 

Catra nods. 

“The first time we were both in Salineas. You showed me your badge, you called me weak, you scratched my face. Here.” Adora puts two fingers on her left cheek, and Catra has no trouble imagining what it must’ve looked like. “I remember everything about that day. I came back here, and everyone was happy because we won, right? We fixed the gate, we got Mermista to join The Princess Alliance. And I came back here, to my room, and I looked at myself in the mirror. The scratches didn’t hurt anymore, they were only superficial wounds and She-Ra usually takes care of those pretty well, but I could still see them and I could still feel them. I thought how it was the first time you had tried to hurt me and really meant it. And how, despite that, they were the only thing I had from you. We had been best friends all our life and suddenly all I got to show for it was two fading scars.” 

There are tears pooling at the corner of Catra’s eyes, and she hates them. She also hates the way Adora cups her cheek with her hand and brushes them away with her thumb. Catra especially hates the way she leans further into Adora’s hand. Why is she the one being comforted right now? She was the one who made Adora cry herself to sleep in an unfamiliar place, one hand pressed against her cheek, thinking that the one person who cared about her the most actually wanted nothing more than to see her suffer. 

“I know these aren’t always good, Catra. But this is my body. This is the way I choose to see it.” 

Catra takes Adora’s hand and moves it away from her face. She interlocks their fingers together, but doesn’t look at her face. Adora is right, who is she to tell her how she should feel about all this? Adora isn’t dumb. As hard as it is to see things her way, if Adora said it was ok, then Catra would have to take her word for it. 

“Besides,” Adora continues, “this is how it was meant to be.” 

Catra’s eyes snaps back towards Adora’s. “What do you mean by that?” 

“I mean that this is probably the way it was supposed to go. I wouldn’t be me without these, right?” 

Catra’s hand lets go of Adora’s, and she uses it to pinch the bridge of her nose instead. “Adora, I’m trying really hard to be supportive here, but you can’t just say stuff like ‘maybe I was supposed to get injured in such ways my body would be permanently mutilated by it because I wouldn’t be the same without it’ and expect me to be ok with it!” 

Something very close to anger blazes on Adora’s eyes. She raises her arm, her palm and wrist facing Catra. 

“Look at this, Catra? Is it that different from the years we were growing up?” 

Catra refuses to play along with this. She has tried, but she has heard enough. “It’s not the same and you know it!” 

But Adora refuses to back down. “But it is! Can you recall the last time you’ve seen me scratch-free? The last time I haven’t had bruises up my arms and legs? You can’t. Does my arm look any different from when were growing up?” she repeats. 

Catra knows it doesn’t. The calluses on Adora’s hand hadn’t come from wielding a sword. The skin of her forearm might have been pale and unbroken at some point, but it hadn’t been for a while. Adora trained harder than anyone, everyone knew that. She was always up for a challenge. In the Horde, there were a lot of kids with anger issues, and having permission to go as hard as they could meant they didn’t hold back. Besides that, Adora wasn’t the most careful person around, which meant she always got injured in the dumbest of ways. 

"What does it matter, Adora? You shouldn’t have gotten hurt when you were a child either! We were kids, and they turned us into soldiers. We didn’t deserve a second of it.” 

And wow, maybe this therapy thing everyone was so insisting she needed is actually working, because she just said that. No buts, no doubts, no excluding herself from that fact. Wait till Sparkles hears how well adjusted Catra is now. 

“But it matters! I’m a descendant of a colonizing empire. I grew up at the heart of an evil army. My hands were never unblemished. What was I supposed to do, Catra? Stay in the sidelines while people were getting hurt? To do nothing? When I was part of the thing that started the conflict in the first place?” 

“No one says you shouldn’t have done anything, Adora, but you shouldn’t have had to do everything either!” 

“And if not me, who else? Maybe it wasn’t my destiny, maybe it wasn’t fate. But it was my choice. Someone had to step up and take that mantle for the others. All these scars? They mean someone else was safe.” 

“Adora, don’t you get that they aren’t a good thing? I understand you want to-” 

“No,” Adora interrupts her, “you don’t understand.” Adora pauses for a second, and Catra waits for her to gather her thoughts. She wants, she so wants to understand. But she won’t just stay silent if she thinks Adora is still hurting. Not anymore. Adora grabs her hand, and Catra draws circles on the back of it with her thumb. “I know I didn’t have to do it, Catra. I know I didn’t deserve to be thrown into all this. But this is where I ended up anyway. Light Hope brought me here. Hordak took me to the Horde. Shadow Weaver raised me. I couldn’t control any of that. But I chose to go back to the woods. I chose to grab the sword and keep it. I chose to fight against Hordak and Horde Prime. I chose to break the sword instead of letting it destroy the universe. Those were my choices Catra. Yes, none of us deserved to grow up in a place like that. No one deserved to be born in a planet torn in the way ours was. But all these do,” she gesticulates vaguely to herself with the hand she has free, “is proof that when I had the choice to do better, I took it. I see the difference; tell me you see it too.” 

Catra sighs. She does. And Adora was right, in some level. They could work on her self-sacrificing behaviors. They could make sure Adora understood that her wishes and needs mattered as much as anyone else's. But at the end of the day, Adora wouldn’t be Adora if she didn’t stand up for what she believed in. If she didn’t jump at the first chance to help those in need. Catra knew that if Adora had to do it all over again, she would. The only difference would be that she’d have Catra by her side this time around. 

“I’m sorry, you are right. I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.” 

Adora shrugs. “You were worried. And I know that even if I don’t mind how they look, they must be horrible to look at.” 

"No.” The word escapes her automatically, the way kicks and hits used to do before. Only now, if there had been a way to stop it, she wouldn’t have. “You are beautiful.” Catra leans forward, murmuring against Adora’s skin. “Every single thing about you is beautiful,” she kisses the first scar that runs along Adora’s cheek, “gorgeous,” then lands a kiss on one next to it, “perfect,” she gives her a final peck on the cheek before moving her hand to the back of Adora’s hair and kissing her fully on the lips. 

When they pull back, Adora’s cheeks are flushed red. 

“Thank you, but I meant-” she takes a composing breath before continuing, “I meant that I understand how difficult it must be to have a constant reminder of what happened on my face. That’s why I took Perfuma’s gift on the first place, I don’t want you to have to go through that.” 

“Adora, it’s your face. I made my mistakes, and I’ll have to live with the consequences for the rest of my life. This,” she caresses Adora’s face, “is only a more tangible proof of that.” 

Adora rolls her eyes. “Now who’s being self-sacrificial? If I can do anything to make things easier for you, I will. I don’t want you to look at me and see a mistake. Especially when that’s not what I see at all.” 

Catra takes the bait. “And what do you see then?” 

“I see how brave you are. How despite all the hurt you still chose to change, to admit your mistakes and do the right thing. I see how, no matter how scared you were, you still chose love. You risked everything for it, Catra, and isn’t that the most beautiful thing?” 

For the second time, tears come unbidden to her eyes. But this time they don’t stay quietly on the corner of her eyes. No, this time they flow freely. Adora tugs her forward, and Catra hastily hides her face on her neck. 

“You are an idiot,” Catra says between sobs. 

Adora wraps her arms around her and positions Catra more fully over her own body. “I know, I’m the worst.” 

“You really are.” 

They stay like that for a while. Catra’s sprawled over Adora, crying softly, hugging her by the waist. Adora peppers kisses on Catra’s forehead in a manner so tender it doesn’t really help Catra snap out of it any time soon. The surge of emotions goes away after a few minutes, but neither of them moves. Catra’s head is on Adora’s chest and their legs are tangled up together. 

“I will never be able to see it that way,” she admits, because she knows it’s true. There’s no amount of therapy or soul searching that would let her look at the pain she inflicted on Adora and see it as a valiant act on her part. “But maybe...” she gets choked up for a second, and she trails off. She waits until her voice won’t give up on her again. “Maybe I can think about you?” Catra rests her weight on her forearms and looks up at Adora. “And see them as proof of how fearless you are? How loving and forgiving?” 

Adora kisses her, and Catra melts. She’s exhausted, from the day and from this conversation, but she’s never felt so warm, so safe. She lets herself relax on top of Adora. Adora cards her fingers through Catra’s hair and scratches behind her ears, humming softly. She never used to back at the Horde, but Catra has heard her do it a couple of times since she’s been back. They’ve been nothing but soak up in each other’s presence, trying to catch up in everything they missed, and a part of Catra still feels like she’ll never get enough of this. She’ll never get enough of Adora, of figuring out every single thing there is to know about her. Today, she can start by asking. 

She caresses the long scar on the inside of Adora’s tight. “How did you get this one?” 

“Oooooh, that’s a good one,” Adora says, and she wiggles back a little, searching for a more comfortable position for storytelling. It makes Catra have to adjust a bit too. 

She starts the tale of a battle that Catra herself didn’t take part in, but she does remember being the one who decided to send their forces down there. 

“It was so badass Catra, I took down like fifty bots by myself.” 

Catra laughs, swept up by Adora’s enthusiasm. 

“Hey, Adora?” she says when the story is done. 

“Yes, Catra?” 

“I love you.” 

Adora’s hands are resting on the small of Catra’s back, who’s literally laying on top of her, making it impossible for them to get any closer. Adora still tightens her grip, because she’s stubborn and she won’t let something like pure logic stand in the way. 

“I love you too.” 


End file.
